lovely, yes, but several people would have to be injured, meltdown , no shows and she'd need to be an improved tecnical skater. Its clear they enjoy her style/presentation and I can see her determination to go to Sochi. I think we will have a few new faces and doubt she'll ever be golden.

Well, if she beats the rest of the field by outskating and outjumping them, I'm fine with it. But I just don't think she's at "that level" so far, yet the judges want to put her up there. I dunno, JMO- maybe I'm just tired and bored.

Lepisto becoming world champ is entirely possible because who knows what rules will pass at the ISU meeting in June. All the rules that have been passing have benefitted people who do not focus on jumping.

Lepisto becoming world champ is entirely possible because who knows what rules will pass at the ISU meeting in June. All the rules that have been passing have benefitted people who do not focus on jumping.

Before, we've seen a greater push for transitions and other in-betweens, a clamp-down on edge and UR and a slight increase in BV for big jumps, just to sum up the big changes. This time, I expect to see people pushing for greater BV for 3A and quads. The Japanese fed officially announced that it will request for the mid-BV deal to encourage high-risk jumps and an increase in the 3A BV (I also heard it might ask for a risk GOE checkpoint -- if you do a hard jump, you get GOE by virtue of the attempt). After the Olympics, I also see Russian reps following suit. So no, I don't think all the new rules, both those already established and those yet to come, have benefitted skaters who don't focus on jumping. Instead, more so than before (early CoP era), top-tier skaters have been encouraged to bring the whole package: excellence both in jumps and non-jump elements. The most important elements are the jumps, no matter what people say. If you want to be on top, you must hav the jumps, but now GOE is gaining in importance. It's not about what you do, but how you do it.

I have to say though, I'm very excited for this upcoming ISU conference. I love rules.

Lepisto becoming world champ is entirely possible because who knows what rules will pass at the ISU meeting in June. All the rules that have been passing have benefitted people who do not focus on jumping.

I rewatched my tape about the Worldchampionships.
She really did a decent triple Lutz there together with a 3-3 toe loops combo.
She missed the Salchow and the loop..... So, she won the bronz with 3 triples of 2 kind of..... Even if she is a lovely skater I think that is more shocking than winning the male competition without a quad but with many nice clean triples ( it doesn't bother me at all).

Katarina Witt did more triples back in 1983, she would definitely win the bronz here with her long program 27 years later....

It gives me an even stronger feeling, how lucky we are to be present when this 2 great talents are competing (Yu-Na and Mao).

Sarah Hughes did 2 triples to win her Olympics Gold. Or was it 1?
Mirai Nagasu did 0 triples to win her only US title.

So what's the big deal that Laura Lepisto got the BRONZE? Miki flip didn't look rotated in the SP. In the LP, she had 6 triples, some are shaky. Laura's combined SP and LP had 6 triples. All with quality and +GOE. Her skating skill, presentation, beauty are vastly superior to Miki. I don't see who else deserved the bronze other than Laura.

If they keep giving her medals and high scores like candy for subpar performances, then obviously I'm going to be a bit mean-spirited.

She has ONE medal from worlds. What do you mean "keep giving her medals"?

I think this Worlds wasn't very well skated by the ladies in general, probably because most of them were burned-out after the Olympics (Laura herself was better, and higher-scored, in the LP in Vancouver than at Worlds). But everyone is complaining that she was overscored in the LP here, well, name me a skater who should have outranked her in the LP but didn't? Miki, Cynthia, Carolina, they all beat her in the LP but had weaker SP scores and couldn't overtake her (I mean, Miki's SP was pretty bad, has everyone just magically forgotten that???) She had relatively low technical content, but the performance quality was still there, and I think her PC scores reflect that reasonably accurately (to my mind, she had the best artistic performance after Mao).

And for what it's worth, I don't think anything the judges do justifies this kind of mean-spiritedness. It's so childish.

She can definitely become a world champ if she skated CLEAN in both SP and LP and if other top skaters flaters. Her LP 126+ has 5 triples, and if she didn't double her 3S, 6 triples program of her could be around 128-130 range. SP with mistake on 2A is around 64+ so if she land her 2A clean, she could be in around 66-68 range and these score are pretty competitive with Ando, Kostner and Rochett and Nagasu.

Only the last 3 world title is won with 5 triples or 5 triples with one underrotated triple jump. Laura already has the PCS and good GOE when she land them, so it's a matter of how many triples will she land.